


and i'm tired of fighting my monsters when real ones exist

by darlathecyborgpluviophile



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Arguments, Bleeding Out, Grief, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Third Person, Post-Slash, Reconciliation, Severe Injury, Suicidal Ideation, World of Ruin, and maybe some promdyn if you squint?, implied/referenced PTSD, no beta we die like men, there's mentioned prompto/cindy too, this could be a lot of things, this could be promptis or ot4, this sure got venty and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlathecyborgpluviophile/pseuds/darlathecyborgpluviophile
Summary: Taking on the Yojimbo alone had been a bad idea.





	1. i am shaking, and my resolve is quaking (during)

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of me like a waterfall. It's okay- I'm not really sure what it is either.
> 
> Based on [this kaciart post.](http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/175451154843) Title is from the Ryan and Leigh song, "Pancakes For Breakfast".

Taking on the Yojimbo alone had been a bad idea.

It had been a bad idea the whole time Prompto had signed on for the hunt, and even more so the whole time he had travelled on chocoboback from Takka’s to some remote location on the Duscae/Leide border.

He wasn’t a teenager any more—hadn’t been for four years, now. He couldn’t keep blaming these poor decisions on an undeveloped brain, nor on stupid hijinks with his best friends.

Well. Once best friends, anyway.

Still, he emerged from the battle victorious, taking the mountain of a swordsman down with a barrage of lucky shots. It was great; he felt accomplished. Somewhere, down in his ribs, where his heart used to take up far too much room, he felt a twinge of something that could maybe be called…pride?

It was almost enough for him to forget about the huge gash he’d taken in the middle.

 _Okay_ , he thought. _Damage control._ _What would Iggy do?_

Prompto sunk to the moldy, mushroom-ridden ground of the clearing. He still had an arm around the wound, both in an effort to stem the tide of blood that was struggling to make it down his pants, and because damn, it felt _warm_. It felt warmer than anything he’d felt the entire last three years of Night, warmer than the quilts on his bed at Hammerhead, than the tundra gear he still sometimes wore around the wasteland Leide had become, than Cindy’s well-built arms around him after a nightmare. He almost tried to press his arm further into the wound, desperately trying to spread that warmth up his arm and to his whole upper body, which somewhere, he could tell was feeling colder by the second, the wind in this clearing becoming unforgiving.

The thought came to him, after a minute of desperate squelching noises, that maybe this probably wouldn’t be Ignis’s first move.

He already knew that he didn’t have any curatives—he’d used his last four hi-potions during the fight. With another gust of wind came the thought of _why didn’t I buy more, I know I needed more, how could I forget,_ which he only shook off. It didn’t matter now. It didn’t solve this problem, or any of the thoughts and decisions that led him here, to this instant, bleeding out alone in this poor excuse of a forest clearing.

Okay. Okay. Next step was probably to look at the wound. Even in his hazy, off-kilter mental state, Prompto knew he didn’t want to do that, but damn it, it was important.

For some reason, a memory came to him of his adoptive mother, standing in the doorway of his seven year old self’s disorganized landslide of a bedroom, with her flawlessly manicured hands on her hips saying, _“Well, sometimes we have to have make a mess before things can be clean again, hm?”_

Prompto went for a deep breath, but with the gash, he ended up losing more air than he expected by crying out from the pain it caused. Shallow ones would have to do for now.

Prompto took the shallowest breath he could, and slowly peeled his forearm away from the slobbering mess of red that was his stomach. It was dark, what with the eternal Night, and the trees around him pressing in just enough to block the glow of the moon from shining where he really could have used it. Adding on, his vision was definitely starting to go, from the pain, from the exhaustion, from the fact that he couldn’t really think, think _what am I doing_ and _what have I done_ and _why did I forget the potions?_

The wind hit his bloodied arm with a chilling force that Prompto might have registered as impressive if it hadn’t stung so fucking much. The cold reverberated through his wound too, clearing the fog in his mind for a brief instant and replacing it with a glaring white, before he slammed his arm back over the opening and doubled over, gasping and dry-heaving.

Another half-remembered memory, though this time more due to voluntary repression than anything else—arms up, tilted down, jolts of lightning magic streaming into his body from a soft weight somewhere near his hips, too tender, too _much_ , _please no stop it hurts it hurts get your hands off I hate you I hate you I hate you,_ screaming himself hoarse.

Back at it again with the shallow breaths. They were better than nothing.

By some miracle, Prompto managed to reach out a hand against the ground, and push himself into sitting again. He closed his eyes—seeing was starting to take too much effort, using up concentration that he sorely needed—and let the hand explore outward, in methodical circles, just to see what he could find. Indeed, after a few minutes of frantic patting, he found something—a rock, a boulder, more like. Maybe something he could press his back against. Something to rest on.

It fucking hurt.                                                                         

Even after opening his eyes again, he knew that the boulder wasn’t far away, maybe a yard, but it took a fucking eternity of half-crawling and gasping out for any sort of air that _wouldn’t_ _godsdamn_ _hurt_ before he got there, more sensitive wreck than human at this point. Leaning back against the smooth, painfully cold surface, after having got as comfortable as he was going to get right now, Prompto realized his face was unpleasantly sticky.

He’d been crying. Fine. That was just fine.

He opened his eyes again, but it took a definite effort this time around. His eyelids felt more like weights than pieces of skin, and for a brief moment he was locked in a struggle to get them all the way open at all—a struggle he eventually won, by biting his tongue so hard he could feel it start to bleed too. Kind of amazing that he had any of the stuff left at this point.

With that thought, he looked down again. The blood from his stomach had definitely made it down his pants now, staining the waistline and bits of the crotch an imperceptible dark color. Out here, it almost looked like he was bleeding the Night itself.

Prompto looked to the sky, and could almost smell campfire smoke, and grilled meat, and something different, something damp and mostly unpleasant yet somehow comforting, curled into that same shade of black he was seeing on his pants, an arm slung around his middle much like his own was, breathing deeply and easily.

If he _just closed his eyes,_ he could pretend that was happening _now_. He could pretend he was back _home_ , snuggled into his closest friends before time had warped their bonds, tucked away somewhere safe and warm where the darkness still lingered outside the tent flap door but couldn’t _touch_ him, couldn’t bring him pain.

Ignis’s voice was whispering counterpoint. _Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake. Stay alive._

The moment he’d escaped from Zegnautus and saw the sky, there hadn’t been anything to pierce the ever-present black except for the moon. But now, vision blurring, hearing voices, he could see them: the stars, alive and well, twinkling at him from so high above.

He stared. He stared. He stared.

Prompto took a shallow breath, and then spent most of it saying, “Noct.”

The admission made him cough, and that same inky blood got all over his chest now, too.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about dying. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about what it would be like to do it himself.

_Why did you let yourself forget the potions?_

It didn’t matter now.

The wind swept through again, bringing its stinging pain with it. He managed to shudder.

Gods. The stars were way more beautiful out here than they were in the city.

Prompto forgot why he was even trying to stay awake in the first place. How could it possibly even be a fair choice, when waiting for him in the dark was…

 _Noct_.

His unused hand dangled off his knees, and as soon as his eyes shut, he felt someone take it.

_I don’t…want to die alone._

The hand holding his squeezed tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theoretically, there's another chapter here (maybe two?) but idk if I can pull it off tonight, if...ever. We'll see.


	2. pruning off the pieces (before)

“What is _wrong_ with you?”

“What’s—look, clearly you’re the one that’s already come to the conclusion there’s something wrong, why the fuck are you asking me?”

Even though Gladio looked away, a storm was clearly churning in his eyes.

“You don’t talk to us anymore, Prom, you—you used to tell us everything.”

Prompto just scoffed. “Who are you, my parents? That’d sure make things awkward.”

His eyes darted to the corner of the caravan where Ignis sat, unmoving. Nothing but a witness to this disaster of a conversation.

Gladio looked back up, right on the tip of saying something sharp, when by the grace of every god in the Hexatheon, he shut up.

Prompto tried to make his case for the third time that night.

“Look. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing I’m not handling.”

“That’s what scares us,” Ignis finally piped up. “You are not handling it as well as you think you are.”

“You want the attention,” Gladio just up and decided, and a flash of heat crossed Prompto’s face as he thought _how_ dare _you_ , “clearly, that’s why you’re so sullen, that’s why you’re signing up for all the dangerous hunts a team of ten can barely take on—“

“Attention?” Prompto repeated. “ _Attention?_ I mean, come the fuck…how is that even new to you guys? I know you’ve always seen me as the world’s biggest attention whore.”

Gladio and Ignis both started saying something, but Prompto continued yet louder, the heat continuing to flush through his face and neck, and cut them both off. “And, you know what, why would I want to _show off_ whatever the hell’s wrong with me right now? It’s not fucking fun. It’s not me saying, ‘hey, everyone! Come be in my head for a little while, you’ll have a great time!’ It hurts like _hell_ , and _no_ , I don’t want attention, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ignis stood. “You have to tell someone.”

Prompto laughed in disbelief. “I barely understand it myself, okay? I don’t know how I would even begin to tell someone about it, and I don’t fucking _want_ to. So lay. The hell. Off.”

He threw his hands up in the air, and grabbed his vest off the back of the chair in front of him.

Gladio sneered, and right as Prompto put his hand on the caravan’s doorknob, said, “I bet _Noct_ knows.”

He stopped dead. Rage flushed away, out and out and out of his skin, leaving him cold and shell-shocked.

“What?”

“Oh come on,” Gladio spit, “you always liked him the most out of all of us. You two were all over each other during the trip.”

Prompto blinked. Turned around, clutching at the leather of his vest. “What, and I wasn’t all over you _enough_? Were you, like, keeping track of exactly how many blowjobs I gave you? What about you, Iggy? What was your tally? How many _favors_ did I do for you?”

Ignis opened his mouth to say something, only for Gladio to interrupt.

“I wasn’t fucking saying—“

“No, I get it.” Prompto put his hands on his hips. “This is about jealousy. You want me to spill about things I would _much rather_ forget, things I couldn’t even talk to you about if I fucking _tried_ , because you’re jealous of Noct.”

Gladio was completely gone now, lost in the rage that had been driving him on for the last three years. He stabbed a finger ahead.

“You know what? You got to have him, that last night. You two were fucking inseparable, curled up in that bunk, _neither of us_ got to have that. Do you know how long it’s been since I got to feel either of you? He’s _gone_ , and now you have your stupid girlfriend—“

There were tears slipping out of Prompto’s eyes now, ones that he hadn’t even registered were there until they were released, his composure lost.

“I don’t have to fucking put up with this,” he said, and he left.


	3. at least we mattered for a while (after)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, life is feeling a little kinder to me today than it has all week. Writing this (among other things) has helped, so, thank you guys for coming along with me on this weird little journey.
> 
> I wouldn't call this _fluff_ , but there's definitely reconciliation, and a touch of comfort. I hope it came out okay, haha. ^-^
> 
> Title from the Ryan and Leigh song, "It Lingers, It Lasts".

_It’s cold, in the place where Prompto is._

_Something’s in the air, too, something echoey and hard to place. A low humming, like_ power _, like so much power that it can’t be contained—_

_And Prompto can feel it, as he breathes in, (oh gods, he can breathe in again, he can take a full breath, it feels so good) that power is electrifying, and he teems with new life. He wants to open his eyes, but then there’s a voice somewhere over him that says, “Don’t.”_

_The voice is familiar, but when he tries to follow that recognition to its conclusion, he…can’t. The winding paths of his memories are dark, hard to follow—all that he has to go on is fuzzy feelings of warmth, and safety, and how it felt to be loved for the very first time._

_The voice sighs in relief._

_“You’re an idiot sometimes, you know that?”_

_Something presses against his forehead, solid, real, warm._

_“You can’t come here yet. We’ve still got fighting to do.”_

_A word claws its way up his throat, before he knows what he’s saying._

_“Noct?” he utters, and cringes when he hears how raspy and wrecked his voice is._

_“I love you,” the voice replies. “So much.”_

_The solid on his forehead disappears, replaced by the light brush of lips against his skin._

_“Keep yourself safe. I’d rather see you in person next time, okay?”_

_Prompto can’t help but smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I promise.”_

_Even behind his eyelids, the space he’s in gets brighter and brighter, and the humming louder, until the world around him is completely drowned in light and sound—_

 

******

 

He woke up in Hammerhead, eased out of unconsciousness by half-remembered dreams. _Good_ dreams _,_ for once. He was smiling, not exactly knowing why, as reality pressed in on him from all directions.

There was an IV drip to his right, by the bedside table that separated his bed from the guest one. He could only assume its presence was courtesy of Ignis’s connections back in Lestallum—they didn't have those kinds of resources all the way out here.

Prompto stared at it for a moment, tracing the path down from the bag and into the needle in his arm, then across, to where bandages were wrapped around his middle. There was still a spot of red seeping through the many layers of white, and catching sight of it made his vision go blurry—until talking caught his ears, enough to pull him out of the memory of almost dying.

Someone was chuckling, saying, “Yeah, right,” and stepped into the doorway of his room holding a white coffee mug.

Gladio.

When their eyes met, all good humor dropped.

“Hey,” he said, hulking in the doorway instead of walking in like he was primed to do not moments ago.

“Hey.”

He sighed, admitting defeat. “Can I come in?”

Prompto closed his eyes, and leaned back against his pillow. “Yeah. Fine.”

Every step Gladio took was careful and precise, like the floor of the room was lined with broken glass. There was a stool pulled up next to the bed, clearly taken from Takka’s, and he sat gingerly down on it.

The smell of whatever was in his mug—coffee?—made Prompto’s stomach rumble. He didn’t want to make a comment about it. Neither, apparently, did Gladio.

“How long was I out?” Prompto asked, tersely.

Gladio looked into his drink. “Couple days.” Then, his eyes swiveled back up, trying to catch Prompto’s.

Prompto just stared forward, ignoring the shaky exhale on his right, until—

“We were worried about you. Don’t even doubt it.”

That did the trick. Before he could force them back, before he could say something biting about _when are you not worried_ , tears started to well in Prompto’s eyes.

“I-“

“We messed up. Big time. Okay?”

“ _Hah_. No shit.”

“We’re sorry, Prom. I’m—sorry.”

“I know you meant what you said about Noct and me, so don’t even start,” Prompto snapped.

Anger flashed through Gladio, freezing his face into a frown—and then, surprisingly, he let it go.

“I…know.” His voice was tense, still poised on the cusp of rage. “I’m not gonna try and deny it. What’s said is said. I just…shouldn’t have said it then, and in that way.”

Prompto’s tears flowed. He didn’t try to stop them.

Gladio leaned forward, elbows on his knees, mug between his two hands.

“I miss him,” he admitted, in barely a whisper, “so much, it—hurts. And hearing about you going out there, coming back a total shitshow, about how distant you’ve gotten from everyone…” He swiped at his own face. “I can’t lose you too. Not again.”

Prompto looked towards him, catching his gaze.

“I know Iggy feels the same way,” he continued. “And then we went about it all wrong, just throwing you to the wolves all over again. Fucking Six—“

“I’m not telling you about Gralea,” Prompto blurted. Gladio stopped, for once in his life actually _listening_.

“I-I, mean,” Prompto sniffled and tried to clear his throat, “I’m sorry, but I just…can’t. I don’t know how.” He closed his eyes, another set of tears rolling across his cheeks. “Gods, I wish I did. I wish I knew how to talk about it, but there’s just so much _pain_ , I _can’t_ , _Gladdy_ , I’m so sorry…”

“Hey,” Gladio laid an arm across Prompto’s shoulders, the closest either of them could get to hugging. “Hey. It’s okay. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Out in the hallway, Ignis walked by, then stopped upon hearing the tears and murmured words.

“Are you awake, Prompto?”

Prompto nodded uselessly. “Yeah. I am.”

Ignis’s face creased along lines growing deeper and more lasting by the day. “Are you alright? Is it the pain?” He walked in.

“No,” he answered, at the same time as Gladio laughed, “Nah, it’s me.”

“Ah.” Ignis stopped at the foot of the bed. “I assume the two of you have made up?” he continued, tone sharpened for Gladio’s sake.

“We’re okay,” Prompto said. “We’re—yeah, we’re fine.”

Ignis came around, and sat atop the quilt. “I’m so sorry we led you into this. The intervention was my idea, I promise, and a poorly conceived one. Though, some of us,” he didn’t need to say who, as the remark was pointed at the both of them, “didn’t help. We all failed.”

It took a bit of effort, but Prompto’s hand found Ignis’s.

“Do you remember our coming for you?” he asked, pushing the bridge of his sunglasses up his nose.

“Nope.”

“Ah.” Ignis gave his hand a squeeze, and distantly, Prompto recognized the feeling as familiar. “How are you feeling?”

Prompto exhaled as much as he could—the wound was still present, and while breathing was easier now, it still required care.

He was still in pain. He knew, _knew_ , for a fact that this wasn’t over—the Night was still pervasive, his body injured, his mind still a mess, daemons running around both inside and outside of him…

But with Gladio’s arm around his shoulders, and Ignis’s hand in his, and the affection from the dream still settling over him, _maybe_ he could find a way through.

“Better now,” he said, and even though he didn’t know how long the peace would last, he meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, apologies to kaciart, cause I kind of ended up taking a ton of liberties with this. Thank you though for inspiring me, as you always do. :)


End file.
